By putting the £2million clause in Vals contract it effectively became a price to buy him out of his contract & I feel sure if Val new that investment instead of sales was on the menu then Mowatt would have accepted a deal to stay which became apparent when he followed Val to West Brom & I believe if Val had stayed so would Mowatt but at the end of the day we did not invest & the rest they say is history whilst Luton are trying to invest & I sincerely hope it works for them.
How do you know that Val would have signed if we didn't allow him to put that 2m clause in his contract?
It’s sad to see Morris being bashed so. He scored 9 goals last season despite being out for months with a completely freak injury and being in one of the least attacking, least threatening, least creative teams in championship history. Fantastic forward and one I’ll miss once he departs. Let’s see who is next on the list and how much we can get.
The question why Peterborough and Rotherham haven't had to sell players? Peterborough have loans from their owner of circa £14m in their last accounts and that's despite the sales of the likes of Toney. Rotherham have a payroll of about half that of BFC. These are big factors why the drop in to league one isn't quite as desperate for other clubs. BFC need to trim their wage bill and plug the hole, the owners putting a million in is a short term sticking plaster. Without right sizing the payroll the club is in a financial mess. Its going to be painful but getting the finances on a firm footing will enable the club to move forward.
Lots of assumptions in there mate. If we were offering Mowatt the reported £17k a week to stay that should have given him confidence that we were planning to invest and move forward - rather than the other way around. Despite Dane Murphy being in denial, I believe we knew the writing was on the wall with Mowatt and only promotion would have had him staying given the money on offer elsewhere. Val took the first job that came. Without the release clause it's likely he would have left anyway, but with a lower fee being agreed and a messier parting of ways. We also don't know if he would have signed in the first place.
I don't know that there's much bashing going on. I for one love the guy and will also be sad to see him go but I don't think he's the club legend some are making out. We can't force players to stay with the club. Do you think he's grudgingly leaving for a higher level of football and double/triple his salary?
Very little if any bashing. A superb striker for us who had a massive impact on getting us in to the Playoffs and did his upmost last season in difficult circumstances to get us moving in a positive direction. The fairly friendly discussion is more about whether a deal worth around £2m is good value or if he should have gone for something more like an Ivan Toney fee.
I don’t think most people are making him out to be a club legend at all, just that he could’ve been so big for us next season.
Looking at it another way What do you think the reaction would have been on here if we were signing two players who had just had long injuries and had struggled to score for much of the previous season?
I would’ve looked into a little more and not just taken it at face value. I have played and watched football long enough to know struggling teams can have quality players. They have both recovered from those long injuries anyway.
Think the injury record is the most concerning, he was struggling last season still towards the end of matches. Still wish we had him though, he'd have banged them in for fun in league 1.
100%. He'd have terrorised defenders and softened them up for some of the younger players to run rings round them. Huge loss but not one I think we can avoid given the transfer fee mentioned and the apparent determination from the player to be elsewhere.
I get that and I wasn’t having a go at the players, what I meant was after their last season, given the usual swing of opinions on here I was imagining/ wondering how the views would go.
Looks like Morris has come to Luton and we Adebayo is still with us. Is he in this video of Luton in Slovenia? We will have some forward line. I hope you use the money well. https://mobile.twitter.com/lutontown
I get we plug the gap on finances, but who will fill the massive gap up front? At this rate we may need to plug more finances from a drop or long stay in L1…
We’ll still have too many forwards. Sadly ones that to date have suggested they may not be good enough or have yet to prove so.